Obsessed With You (12 page)

Aaron watched the clock on the
cable box while he tried to concentrate on television. He hadn’t
changed the channel for hours and had sat there during sports news, a
sitcom, and now an infomercial for weight loss. At eleven-thirteen,
he hauled himself out of the chair with great effort. He had not
eaten since Lindy’s chicken salad sandwich and he wasn’t hungry.

He put a bottle of water into his
backpack, then his bottle of scotch. He picked up a blanket as an
afterthought. His mind screamed at him that he was crazy, but his
feet carried him across the lawn, following the beam of the
flashlight. It led him to his path and he carefully made his way. The
only sound was the crunching of his feet on the path.

He didn’t need his binoculars
to see there was a truck in front of Cathy’s house. The light from
the porch didn’t reveal what color it was very clearly, but it
looked like it might be green. Definitely not Neil’s white truck.
He used the binoculars, hoping he could see into a window. But the
curtains were drawn, and Cathy was behind them. In her house with her
high school boyfriend.

Aaron sat on the ground and
pulled the blanket around his shoulders. He reached into his backpack
and pulled out the bottle of scotch. It went down his throat
smoothly. Every few minutes, he put the binoculars to his eyes and
looked at Cathy’s house, her front door, willing the boyfriend to
leave.

Aaron had plenty of time to think
as he kept his rabid watch. For the hundredth time since he had moved
to the bay, he questioned his actions. Surely Cathy would be
horrified to know he had been skulking in the woods, watching her
with binoculars. Didn’t a person have a right to privacy? She
wouldn’t take it lightly at all if she ever found out, which she
wouldn’t, if he could help it.

Aaron now owned two houses,
neither of which was a home. He needed to unload one, if not both of
them. Wasn’t his job on the bay done now? He had moved next to
Cathy in desperation to make sure she was okay. He had made a vow to
himself the day he told her he loved her that he would always be
there for her—to love her, to protect her, and to support her.
That’s what partners did, and Cathy was his partner.

But Cathy didn’t seem to need
Aaron anymore. It was time for him to move on, perhaps. He could keep
tabs on her, from afar. He would always be there if she ever needed
him no matter what his circumstances in life happened to be.

But right now, he was obsessed
and a little psychotic. He was drinking too much and not eating or
sleeping enough. He didn’t even recognize the bearded man who
stared back at him from the mirror. He was no longer earning a
regular income, though thankfully he still had his investments. Aaron
was a worker, a producer, a contributor to society. He was not a
stalker ex-fiance.

He stood to leave when he heard
voices coming from Cathy’s house. He whipped his binoculars to his
eyes and trained them on Cathy and the boyfriend coming down the
porch steps. There was enough light to see that Cathy was smiling.
The boyfriend leaned down to kiss her. The kiss went on
excruciatingly long. The boyfriend pulled Cathy to him. He rubbed his
hands along her back, then her butt, pulling her even closer.
Thankfully, Cathy pulled away after a minute or so and went back in
the house.

Jealousy roiled through Aaron. He
stood there a full minute, staring at Cathy’s door before he headed
home. Seeing someone else kiss Cathy, put his hands on her, gave him
a new determination. He had to get back to Atlanta to find out who
had set him up. No more pussyfooting around about that. No more
spending the day in the recliner feeling sorry for himself. No more
hanging around in the woods like a lunatic. Time to get moving. It
was the only way he had a chance with Cathy, if he wasn’t already
too late. And if he was too late, then he’d force himself to move
on.

But for now, he had to produce
the goods.

Chapter
Thirteen

Neil popped the cork off the
champagne bottle and poured it into four vintage flutes Lindy had
brought as a gift to Cathy.

“
This is the biggest job I’ve
ever had,” Neil said. “It’s gonna give us a good start on our
marriage.”

“
You should see the house,
Cathy,” Lindy said. “It’s gorgeous but it hasn’t been taken
care of. Neil’s gonna make it a gem on the bay again.”

Neil, Lindy, Cathy, and Zachery
clinked their glasses together.

“
To Neil,” Zachery said.

“
Let’s get the boil started,”
Cathy said.

Everyone followed her into the
back yard where Neil and Zachery had made a fire pit and started a
slow-burning fire. A huge stockpot sat on the grate. Cathy picked up
the lid and peered inside. It wasn’t boiling yet.

“
You know a watched pot never
boils,” Lindy said laughing.

Cathy clanged the lid back on the
pot.

“
Let’s get the corn and
potatoes ready,” she said.

“
We’re going down to the
pier,” Neil said. He and Zachery grabbed their beers and headed
toward the shore.

“
Just leave us with all the
work,” Lindy said. “Don’t get used to this, babe.”

In the kitchen, Cathy started
husking the corn, placing the ears in a neat row on the counter.

“
You can cut those into
pieces,” she said motioning at the corn.

Lindy got a sharp knife and began
to cut each ear into three pieces.

“
Dammit, I should get the
potatoes ready first,” Cathy said. She banged her fist on the
counter.

“
Hey, girl,” Lindy said.
“What’s up with you?”

Cathy turned to her. “I need to
have a girl’s talk,” she said.

“
Go for it,” Lindy said.
“I’ve noticed you’ve been a little tense lately.”

Cathy lowered her voice to a
whisper even though Zachery and Neil were outside.

“
Zachery wants to have sex and
I’m holding him off,” Cathy whispered.

“
You mean y’all aren’t
doing it?” Lindy asked, incredulous. “You seem so close.”

“
I can’t do it,” Cathy
whispered. “Because I’m not over my broken engagement.”

“
Hmmmm,” Lindy said. She cut
an ear of corn.

“
I like being close to someone
because I’m so damn lonely,” Cathy admitted. “But it’s not
fair to Zachery.”

“
Why don’t you let Zachery
decide what’s fair to him,” Lindy said.

“
Lower your voice!” Cathy
admonished. She put the new potatoes in a colander and ran water over
them.

“
Next week is Valentine’s
Day,” Cathy said after a few minutes. “And Zachery is going to go
all out. He’s got reservations at that expensive restaurant in
Destin. I think he’s going to expect something at the end of the
night.”

“
Men are always expecting
something, honey,” Lindy said. “Doesn’t mean you have to give
it to ‘em.” She started giggling and Cathy joined her.

“
But seriously, Lindy,” Cathy
said after she got control of herself. “There’s other things—too
much to go into right now with them out there.”

“
You could come by the shop on
Monday,” Lindy suggested. “It’s always a slow day. I can get
some sandwiches from the B and B and we’ll have lunch. Ladies who
lunch.”

“
That’s a good idea,” Cathy
said. “Now let’s get this stuff out there. Surely that pot’s
boiling by now. Grab that wine. I need it.”

It was warm enough outside that
only a light jacket was needed. Cathy and Lindy put the corn and
potatoes on the table, which Cathy had covered with a plastic
tablecloth. She checked the pot.

“
It’s rolling now,” she
said. Cathy poured in a mixture of oil and boiling spices. Lindy
stood by the big pot with the potatoes and slid them in, jumping back
so hot water wouldn’t scald her. Cathy did the same with the corn
pieces. They stared into the pot before putting the lid back on.

“
Boo,” Neil said behind them.
Lindy screamed a little.

“
Don’t do that!” she said.
Neil put his arm around her. “I was just joking,” he said.

“
It’s not funny,” Lindy
said, but she was smiling. Watching them, a feeling of sorrow and
bitterness ran through Cathy for all she had lost.

“
I forgot the sausage,” Cathy
said getting up from her seat.

“
They can get that,” Lindy
said looking at Neil and Zachery. “Y’all go on in the kitchen and
cut that smoked sausage up into three-inch pieces. Think you can
manage that?”

“
I think we can,” Neil said.

“
It’s nice out here,” Lindy
said after Zachery and Neil left. “It must’ve been great growing
up right on the bay.”

“
It had its plusses,” Cathy
said. “When I was younger, I spent my days on the shore or the
pier. Grandpa and I fished all the time.”

“
What about your mother?”
Lindy asked. “Did she fish, too?”

“
No, not really,” Cathy said
in a faraway voice, remembering her mother. “She stayed inside most
of the time watching TV.”

“
Oh,” Lindy said. “I don’t
think I’d be able to stay away if I lived here.”

“
She was grieving,” Cathy
said.

“
I’m sorry, honey. I didn’t
mean to bring up a painful subject.”

“
It’s okay,” Cathy said.
But she felt tears stinging her eyes.

“
I’m an idiot,” Lindy said.
“Now I’ve upset you.”

“
No, no,” Cathy said with a
wave of her hand. But the tears fell anyway. Lindy moved over closer
to Cathy and put her arm around her.

Cathy turned to Lindy and said
tearfully, “Can you put that sausage in? I need to get myself
together.”

She went out the front door so
Zachery and Neil wouldn’t see her. Their laughter floated on the
air from the patio as she walked along the edge of the woods toward
the bay. The moon was only a fingernail in the dark sky, but Cathy
knew her way to the pier. She walked out across the water and stared
at the sky, strewn with stars. She hadn’t expected to be thinking
about her mother that night, but that’s how loss was. It hit you
out of the blue sometimes.

After her father’s death,
Cathy’s mother had sunk into a chronic depression. At first, it
just seemed like grieving. But as time went by, the grieving never
stopped.

Up until her father’s death,
Cathy had lived in Jacksonville, where her father taught engineering
at the university. They had a nice house in a nice suburb, with a
creek running through the back end of the yard. Cathy had a lot of
friends in the neighborhood, and they spent their free time after
school and in summers, playing in the woods that permeated the
neighborhood, riding their bikes up and down the streets, having
spend-the-night parties.

All of that came to an end when
her father got sick. The house was quiet when he finally moved into
the den where the hospital bed was set up. The previous year had been
spent in chemo for his lung cancer. At first, her parents were
hopeful about the treatments. But as the year moved ahead, her father
got sicker and sicker, until he was in the den with daily visits from
nurses, then round-the-clock hospice care.

Cathy’s mother rarely left her
father’s side. Cathy’s friends were no longer allowed to come
over because her mother wanted complete peace and quiet for her
father. But Cathy remembered a day when she was talking to her father
as he lay in his bed. He held her hand and said, “I miss all the
noise, Catbird.”

And then, a couple of days later,
he said to her, “I’m sorry I won’t be here to see you blossom.
But always remember that you are a Catbird. You fly high and are
always watchful. You know the truth.”

Three days later, he was dead.

Her mother shrieked when the
hospice nurse declared her father dead. Cathy stood in the doorjamb,
watching. The Catbird. She saw her mother fall to the floor and the
nurse kneel beside her. “Call your grandparents,” the nurse
instructed her urgently. “She needs them now.”

And Grandma and Grandpa had come
right away. Grandma stayed with her mother, who was inconsolable.
Grandpa took care of Cathy. She had always loved her grandfather, but
in the days following her father’s death, he had become her rock,
the one who would never let her down. She clung to him then.

She clung to him now in the wake
of her recent loss.

Cathy took her eyes off the
star-studded sky and bowed her head. She began to sob about her
father and her mother. And then she sobbed about Aaron and their
mangled relationship.

She let it go fully, casting her
tears into the waters.

Cathy tried to get a grip on
herself, but her tears fell no matter what. She didn’t want to ruin
the evening they had all planned, but she couldn’t stop her grief.

“
Hey, Cathy,” Lindy called to
her. “I came to check on you.”

Cathy looked down the length of
the pier and saw a flashlight bobbing toward her.

“
I’m sorry,” Cathy said
when Lindy got closer.